Solar paint turns vapors in air into hydrogen fuel

Jun 16, 2017, 7:50 AM EDT

(Source: Michael Coghlan/flickr)

In a development that could lead us to a world free from carbon-based fuels, two Australian researchers have created a solar-powered paint that extracts moisture in the air and turns it into clean hydrogen gas, which can be stored and used as sustainable fuel source.

Researchers Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh and Torben Daeneke say their research, funded by RMIT University and the Australian Research Council, seeks to drive the world from a photovoltaic economy to a hydrogen economy, writes Seeker.

This new technique of harvesting hydrogen is not only simple but also very cheap compared to the complex electrolysis process currently used to derive hydrogen, notes New Atlas.